Day 1
We had a bit of drive in the morning heading inland to get up to the mountains. The road to Mt Cook is a one road in/one road out road that is 60km long, with nothing off the main road until you get to Mt Cook village, so you only go there if you are going there!!!
For a lot of the road, you drive alongside the very turquoise Lake Pukaki. The lakes in this area are turquoise in colour due to fine, glacier-ground rock particles that are held in suspension in the lakes. We stopped at one of the lookouts to admire the turquoiseness and also to cook burgers :) unfortunately, because of the dark clouds in the sky, when the pictures were taken, the turquoise was nowhere to be seen :(
Anyways, so we carried on up the road to Aoraki/Mt Cook village and headed straight for the information centre. There were many mountains in the range in view when we got up there, but the biggie, Mt Cook was in a valley of mist and cloud, so we weren’t able to see it at all. Mt Wakefield gave us some views though.
Mt Wakefield at 2000+m
As the views at the village weren’t very good, and we were advised they still weren’t good when in Hooker Valley (the valley that leads to Mt Cook, see above) we drove round to the Tasman Glacier and Lake Tasman for a nice walk and some good sightseeing.
Tasman Glacier is the longest glacier in NZ at 27km. The waters pool at the end of the glacier to form Lake Tasman. Lake Tasman is the youngest lake in NZ at only 30 years old. In the 1970s, it used to be lots of small meltwater ponds and then the more water there was, the more ponds joined until now. It is one of the only lakes in the world to have icebergs in it!!!
It was a 25minute hike up to the Glacier viewpoint, but once we were up there, it was worth it. Not only did we get views of the glacier and lake, we also got views over the valley (which were used in the Lord of the Rings films for the Battle of Pellenor).
The glacier does not look very white but this is the glacier terminal face!
Naomi finally spotted Mt Cook poking through the clouds (Chris managed to catch the exact moment on camera!!)
The walk to the glacier view was very tiring, but Naomi wanted to go down to the lake too, so she wandered down there on her own (its was 40mins there and back) while Chris waited in the car. Naomi just wanted a closer look at the icebergs!
As it was starting to get late, and light was fading, Chris and I needed to get to our DOC campsite that was at the start of the Hooker Valley in the depths of the mountains. Very picturesque!
Anyways, as we were in the middle of nowhere and it was pitch black at 6pm, we were in bed not to long after that. But not after doing some stargazing as the night sky was unbelievable! Soooooooo many stars!
Day 2
It poured with rain today. So we thought it best to do an indoor activity :) In Aoraki/Mt Cook village, a Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre has been set up dedicated to local climbers and giving lots of local information about the mountain range. For those who don’t know, Sir Edmund Hillary is one of NZ’s biggest stars, being the first man ever to scale Mt Everest. He is seen as something of a god here! There was a planetarium and 3D cinema for the more high tech peeps to enjoy too.
We left Aoraki/Mt Cook in the early afternoon, still with no sighting of Mt Cook so a little disappointed.
But our destination was to our next snow field, so we weren’t disappointed for long :)
We were to be skiing a mountain called Mt Dobson, but the nearest town to it (23km away) was Fairlie. So we spent the rest of the afternoon making our way there, checking out the lay of the land for the next day, and then setting up camp for the night. We found out that Mt Dobson did 2 4 1 ski passes on Mondays, and we had a 2 4 1 pass from our campervan too, so we decided to stay there for a couple of nights. When we checked in to the campsite, they said they do a buy 2 nights get the 3rd free, so it was set, 3 nights in the tiny town of Fairlie to enjoy some sunny skiing :)
Day 3
We got up early to get to the ski rental shop in town and then to get up to the mountains for 9.30ish! Ever eager! What we didn’t realise at the time was that we had a 15 km road up the mountain that takes us up to NZ’s highest car park (the car park for the ski field) at 1700m!!!!
It was a long and windy road up, and at one stage we had to go through the cloud level so visibility was only about 20m!!! But once at the top, it was clear blue skies and sun :) perfect.
We spent the morning on the pomma lift for Chris to get his feet, then headed to the chairlifts for the afternoon. Chris was addicted. The chairlifts made it easy for his leg and the runs down from the chairlifts were brilliant. One big steep basin with lots of powder. Great for Chris on his board, but horrible for Naomi on her skis! She kept getting stuck in all the powder lol! Lots of pictures of beautiful mountains to follow!
So the drive back down, we realised again that we would have to go through the cloud cover, so this time we came prepared with a camera to show how bad it was! This time, we were metres from crashing into a giant JCB, just because we couldn’t see it lol!!!
Bearing in mind we had had amazing sunshine all day long, and had some great goggle marks to prove, underneath this cloud cover, apparently the had been terrible! Result!!!
So with very tired legs, we returned happy to our campsite and got fed, showered and chilled out in front of the TV for the evening!
Day 4
We woke up all excited as the weather was beautiful! Got ourselves ready to head up the mountain, drove all the way to the mountain road, only to find the gates locked and shut! We were gutted and couldn’t understand why. So we headed back to Fairlie and asked in town, apparently at the top of the mountain there was 120kph winds and it was way to dangerous to go up there! So we spent the day firstly wandering around Fairlie (which took no time whatsoever) and then played catch up on internet, blog etc killing time till the next day, which was supposed to be great weather for skiing!
Day 5
Once again the sun was shining when we woke, but this time there a little cloud cover. So we drove up to the mountain. There had been snow fall overnight, but the piste conditions were very icy in comparison to Monday. Heaven for Naomi, hell for Chris! Chris was getting a real education in snow conditions as one side of the mountain was icy, and the otherside was ice and powder and the middle was slush!!! But there were even better views today! You could see for miles, and see all the mountains ranges around! It was fantastic. Worthwhile going up the mountain just for the views :)
Another fun and successful day on the slopes.
Afterwards, we needed to get ourselves on the road as we had missed out on skiing the day before, we had to get as close to Christchurch as possible. We managed one better and got just north of Christchurch and with the weekly shop done too :) successful evening. Only problem was we stayed in a shocking campsite, so shocking we didn’t dare do anything there lol! So ended up having cheapo dinner at a local pub :)
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